| China
building well-off society in all-round way (11/10/2002)
The report delivered by Jiang Zemin to the 16th National Congress
of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has clearly put forward the
objective of building a well-off society in an all-round way in
China.
The term "well-off society", which means a society in
which allpeople lead a fairly comfortable life, was first used by
late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who was reputed as the "chief
architect" of China's reform and opening up drive.
"Our goal is to build a well-off society by the year 2000,"
Deng had said when reform and opening up was launched in the late
1970s.
However, on its way to a well-off society, the world's most populous
nation first had to help all its people to shake off poverty and
get adequately fed and decently dressed. It took abouttwo decades
for China to achieve this preliminary success.
Starting from the late 1980s, the CPC and the Chinese government
have worked hard for the historic leap in people's lifefrom being
adequately fed and dressed to being well-off. Thanks tothe fast-paced
advancement of reform and opening up and a sustained rapid economic
growth, this goal was basically attained at the end of the last
century.
The United Nations has applied the Engel Coefficient, which indicates
the proportion of food expenditure in total consumption,as a major
index for judging living standards of people of variousnations.
Normally a society can be labeled as "well-off" if its
Engel Coefficient is between 40 and 50 percent.
In 1998, China's Engel Coefficient was 44.5 percent in towns and
cities and 53.4 percent in rural areas, very close to the UN standard
for "being well-off".
Nevertheless, Jiang's report to the Party Congress pointed out
that the Chinese people's well-off life is "still at a low
level","not all-inclusive" and "very uneven".
"We need to work hard over a long period of time to consolidate
and uplift our current well-off standard of living", according
to the report.
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